Faith looked at the man opposite her. "You want me to do what?"
The man, a tall and rather dashing redhead with an artistically broken nose grinned. It was a rather engaging smile. "You're about to be accused of committing a theft in Transbelvia. You need to plead guilty," he said as if it was the best idea in the world.
"Are you nuts? I've never been to Transbelvia," the dark-haired Slayer said sarcastically.
"Of course not," he said with another of those ladykilling smiles. "There's no such country. But if you plead guilty then we can extradite you there - which should put a stop to those idiot assassins that keep being sent after you."
She sighed. "Why don't you go over this again, from the start. Who are you anyway?"
"Luke Reynard," he said cheerfully. "I'm working for the Roth legal firm on this case."
"So you're nothing to do with Wolfram & Hart or the Watcher's Council?" she asked suspiciously.
Reynard laughed. "Hardly. The Roths have been retained by your dad's family for years."
Faith's eyes widened. She rose to her feet and glared down at him. "My dad? I don't have a 'dad' you son of a bitch. I don't know what you want but you can go right to hell!"
.oOo.
Outside the prison, Luke lit a cigarette and perched on the side of his car. It had been years since he'd visited California and it was good to see the old sights again. He sat there smoking contemplatively for several minutes and weighing up his options before stubbing out his cigarette and pulling a deck of cards out of his jacket pocket.
Shuffling through the pack he extracted the card he wanted and gazed at intently for a moment. "Merle, do you have a minute?"
The reply came back swiftly. "Anything for my favorite Pattern-Ghost. What's happening, Rinaldo?"
Luke Reynard, or at least as perfect a copy as was likely to exist in all of Shadow, shrugged. "About what I expected, Merle. She doesn't believe me."
"You're slipping," said Merlin Sawall, King of Chaos, Prince of Thelbane and posesser of more titles than he cared to think about. "Deadliest salesman in the West, and you can't talk a teenager into getting out of jail."
Luke shrugged. "You're thinking of the other guy, Merle. I never finished my degree remember? It just means I use Plan B."
.oOo.
Faith groaned as she was slammed up against the wall. "Is it just me or are you guys getting better at this? 'Cause at this rate I hate to think how much it's gonna cost ol' W&H to keep hiring you guys."
The two demons looked at each other and shrugged. "Very well," said the smaller one, still pressing Faith's head against the wall with one hand. "Indulge my curiousity. W and H are...?"
Faith groaned. Another couple of minutes and she might have caught her breath enough to take them on. 'Yeah, sure,' she thought. 'And the Pope's a practising Muslim.' "What, Wolfram and Hart didn't send you?" she asked "I guess the Council must be branching out."
The two demons exchanged another significant gaze and the larger one - the one who hadn't even bothered to get involved in the fight yet - smirked. "It sounds as if she has offended two local powers."
The smaller one shrugged. "Oh well. Not important then." He pulled out a nasty looking dagger and held it against Faith's jugular vein. "There's a bonus if we take you back alive," he told her calmly. "Not a very big one though. Not enough that we'll put up with any misbehavior, you understand."
Faith considered her options. One, fight a guy who already kicked her ass, has a knife at her throat and a bigger buddy behind him. Two, play along and look for a better opening. Not really a very tough decision.
.oOo.
Luke cursed as he pulled his fingers back from the sheet of paper, sketched to show a simple but recognisable likeness of the girl he was trying to get hold of.
Dammit, how had the Courts found out about her so quickly? And how was he going to deal with two Lords of Chaos who already had her hostage?
He frowned and pulled out a trump that showed a tree on a rocky ledge. Focusing on it, he was glad to see the picture expand around him. "Corwin," he shouted. "It's Luke - get in touch fast, alright?" Then he lowered the card, letting his motel room come back into focus.
"Crap crap crap crap crap," he added for emphasis, reaching under his bed for the sword he'd brought with him. No time to go and ask to borrow Werewindle, so he'd better hope that this cheap copy would be enough if he had to go it alone.
Only a few minutes passed before he felt another presence in the room.
The man stood by the window was about his own height, black of hair and green of eye. He wore black pants and jacket over a silver-grey shirt and the sword at his hip was a silver reflection of the one Luke bore.